School Social Worker (34787)

Buffalo Hearing & Speech Center is seeking a full time School Social Worker at our Sweet Home location in Amherst, Early Childhood Special Education Program. This is year-round position which includes paid school breaks. The Social Worker serves as a member of a multi-disciplinary team to provide behavioral and clinical direction, support, and treatment to preschool students with special needs, social and emotional concerns.

Essential Functions:

• Display competence as a Social Worker, adhering to legal and agency guideline. Serve as an advocate to children/clients, providing counseling/support and delivering advice. Providing guidance to children/clients emotionally, socially, educationally, etc. Facilitating social skills groups for children/clients.
• Deliver on-going assessments and/or treatment to children, communicating with necessary staff and documenting assessments appropriately. a. Collaborate with other team members or those individuals designated by the agency and/or contract (e.g. family members, teachers, speech-language pathologists, consumers, etc.) to facilitate comprehensive treatment. b. Communicating with families on an on-going basis on prognosis.
• Provide family support, serving as a communication and counseling resource for families.
• Complete paperwork on newly enrolled children.
• Respond to crisis situations, ensuring each situation is handled appropriately in terms of reporting and documentation. Communicating such events to other staff, families, supervisors as appropriate.
• Assist supervisors and staff when reporting child abuse, neglect and related issues. Ensure appropriate paperwork is documented and reports are seen to completion. Ensure supervisors are aware of reports when staff communicate with social worker. Assists with staff and supervisors when making phone calls to CPS and documentation, as needed. Helps staff/supervisors understand the reporting process and documentation, serving as a knowledgeable resource in the field.
• Maintain licensure and staying abreast of best practices in the field
• Attend and provide necessary training and in-service. Participate in mandatory all-staff in-service. Attend all team meetings, as assigned by the designated program. Provide annual "Mandated Reporter" training, ensuring all staff understand the definition of mandated reporter and have knowledge of identifying child abuse.

Requirements:

• Experience-1-2 years working with preschool children with social-emotional and behavioral concerns and delays
• Excellent knowledge of early childhood development, sound understanding of the DSM 5 and disorders of early childhood
• Ability to physically handle acting out children and provide therapeutic physical interventions
• Strong team leadership, organization, and communication skills.
• Knowledge of CPS, community services, and basic understanding of local neighborhoods, cultures, and demographics.

Skills:

• The ability to identify with or vicariously experience another person's situation
• Maintain the capacity to set boundaries and accept the limits of what can be accomplished during a specified period of time
• The ability to listen carefully, ask pertinent questions and retain verbally transmitted information is vital to the counseling aspect of social work
• The ability to coordinate communication and action among multiple parties, in connecting clients with services

Education:

Graduate degree from accredited university/college in Social Work

Required License/ Registration/ Certification:

New York State LMSW or LCSW

NYS School Social Worker certification

Physical Requirements:

• Physical actions may include, but are not limited to; bending, kneeling, standing, squatting, reaching, printing, crawling, and running.
• Vision, speech, tactical and hearing senses adequate to perform job requirements.
• Frequent sitting/ standing and when appropriate, floor sitting with pediatric patients.